The highly acclaimed PrimeVideo original Invincible has made its much awaited return and what an incredible return it is! Invincible Season 1 opened to widespread critical acclaim as well as a highly positive reviews from the viewers and Season 2 has continued the good work. Of the three major superhero episodes released today – Loki season 2 episode 5, Gen V Finale, and Invincible Season 2 premiere, Invincible clearly wins. While the other two were pretty good themselves, Invincible Season 2 Episode 1 presented a near perfect and balanced piece of Superhero content fans expect. Read on to check out our in depth review but beware that major spoilers follow below.
Invincible Season 2 Review – Sterling K. Brown Shines as Angstrom Levy
Episode Rating – ★★★★★
While Invincible’s quality and JK Simmons are enough reasons to be hyped about this show, I personally, was massively hyped to see Sterling K Brown. Oh boy, did that pay off! The Primetime Emmy winner delivered such a terrific performance as Angstrom Levy that it is hard to wait an entire week to see him again. Levy was undoubtedly the highlight of this episode as he was not just well performed, but also exceptionally well written. While superhero fans are currently feeling multiverse fatigue, Invincible handled the concept brilliantly! Rather than making multiverse their focus, they used it as a plot device to create a powerful and complicated villain.
That aside, the opening gave us an insight into what the fate of the world would have been if Mark joined hands with Omni-Man. As expected it was freaking diabolical and we are so glad our Mark didn’t fall to the dark side… yet. But as it happens, Mark usually does go dark in almost every universe, and that serves as an excellent motivation for Angstrom Levy to go after Invincible. Talking about Mark, he’s clearly struggling mentally after the catastrophic events which transpired in the last season and feels somewhat responsible for them. And even though, everyone tells him otherwise, he feels a massive weight on his shoulders and is trying to overcompensate.
As for his Invincibility, he is still pretty much vincible as he was beaten to a pulp by various versions of Mauler twins and almost got himself killed. Of course, he’s gotten stronger, but his trauma seems to be holding him back and he clearly isn’t ready to live up to his alter-ego name yet. Moving on, we also got a heart-warming moment between Deborah Grayson and Olga, where Deborah broke down in front of her. This scene also called back a-now-iconic moment where Omni-Man called Deborah “more of a pet”. Well it seems like Mark didn’t hold back any detail about his fight with Omni-man. We also saw an engaging fight sequence involving the new Guardians of the Globe, where we learn that Rudolph is struggling with fear on real life battle and leadership.
As a result, we see the return of Immortal who understandably doesn’t trust Mark. Well, when you are killed twice by a guy you trusted, you’ve got to develop trust issues, especially when you’re dealing with the same guy’s son. So, it would be really cool to see the dynamics between Mark and Immortal in the upcoming episodes. We also saw a few sweet moments between Mark and Eve as well as Mark and Amber, along with some interesting conversations between Mark and Cecil. Of course, it was a sheer delight seeing J.K. Simmons return, even if he was playing Omni-man of some other dimension. Interestingly there was no appearance by Allen the Alien in the premiere even after being heavily featured in the promo material. We’re sure we’ll see him soon though.
As for the animation, it was slightly better than Season 1 with well crafted action sequences and flawless visuals. We can see that the nearly 3 years break was utilized well as the show has managed to return with even better quality in every aspect. The writing was phenomenal and I love how they teased us with the iconic “Invincible” title card throughout the episode, only to pop it up at the very end of the episode. That’s how you make audience root for something and then pay off in an even better fashion. By the way, the new title card looks simply terrific and it has been attached above for your reference. The blood and gore this episode was limited however, this is just the beginning and if season 1 is something to go by, it will only get bloodier.
Final Verdict – PrimeVideo seems to have nabbed the dark superhero storytelling formula as after 3 impressive seasons of The Boys, and one good season of Gen V, Invincible has returned to OWN the playfield once again. Can’t wait for Episode 2 of one of the best superhero TV show ever made!
If you have any questions regarding Invincible, feel free to ask in the comments below. For more content, stay tuned. As usual, like, subscribe and share our articles as we here are trying to build a community of people High on Cinema!
